Summit County Fair’s Enclosed Entrance Ratchets Up Visitor Disarmament

“Ohio State Fair Building Gun Ban Fails All Tests for Constitutionality,” my recent AmmoLand article notes. While lawfully armed visitors may carry in outdoor areas, the fair’s firearms policy bars them from entering buildings while armed, putting all enclosed exhibits and indoor restrooms off-limits to them.

Fox 8 Cleveland WJW reports Summit County Fair citizen disarmament measures will go even further. By requiring all attendees to enter via a newly built enclosed exhibit hall, fair management is essentially saying, “Hold our beer.

Citizen disarmament, enforced by “a bag checks and a mag meter” at the entrance and an increased police presence, will mandate a “gun-free zone” for the 50,000 estimated fairgoers (with law enforcement being the “Only Ones” excepted, of course).

“We’ve increased the count of deputies; we’re going to have drones in the air. The SWAT team will be here if needed,” Fair Director Howard Call declared. “And plus, the mounted patrol will be here just to ensure that everyone has a good time.”

“We’re not going to put up with any mischief,” Call added.  “You know, if people don’t obey the deputies, they will be escorted out.”

Armed enforcers coercing citizens into surrendering a fundamental right, leaving them defenseless to protect themselves and their families…? Mr. Call has a pretty cognitively dissonant definition of a good time.

So, why are they doing this?

Last year a 17-year-old was shot in the parking lot. Per a police report, “The suspect has been described as a black male wearing a Nike t-shirt with dreadlock-style hair and a tattoo on his neck. The suspect fled the scene in an unknown vehicle.”

Meaning, in order to get into the Summit County Fair, citizens, many with children, will need to leave their guns locked in their cars and proceed unarmed to and from the fair entrance in the lot where the shooting took place. Once more, criminals who don’t obey any laws will be used as an excuse to force peaceable people who observe the law into surrendering their rights.

As we’ve noted about the Ohio State Fair building ban, it is unconstitutional by any standard, particularly using the text, history, and tradition criteria the Supreme Court established in the Bruen decision. But that said, even if a strict scrutiny means-end evaluation test were to be invoked, just common sense says it should still fail, because the right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right and there’s no compelling state interest that says guns are okay on one side of a door but need to be banned for public safety on the other.

Or in the case of the Summit County Fair, on one side of the enclosed entrance or the other. According to fair prohibitionists, with no evidence but just personal biases, armed citizens they encounter, mostly unknowingly, in daily life are the problem. That’s just bull.

Call and the Fair Board are imposing  their own prejudices to thumb their collective noses at the Bill of Rights and at Ohio law to impose an unconstitutional ban that ignores the Supreme Court’s findings. As the fair opened July 28 and will close on Sunday, they’ll probably get away with it, for this year anyway, unless someone can figure out a way to get an emergency injunction.

That’s something that’s got to change for next year, though. The Framers never intended for a small group of biased, unelected (by the people) bureaucrats to be able to overrule all three branches of government and deny rights to everyone. If it persists, it’s the type of civil rights violation AAG Harmeet Dhillon should put a stop to, that is, if Ohio Republicans in the legislature don’t step up first to do their job and end the fair building ban.

Perhaps they’re afraid to rock the boat before the midterms, as if Democrats aren’t going to vote against them regardless of any duties they abdicate or concessions they offer. If that’s the case, they should consider bold leadership and action could only help stoke the fires in gun voter’s bellies, whereas cowardice and inaction will only demoralize them and stifle it.

Perhaps if Mr. Ramaswamy pledged to sign such a bill…?

About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.